


behind the scenes of a bake sale

by dhils



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, a child, good thing this fic has both, there's only one thing worse than dumb boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhils/pseuds/dhils
Summary: “Yeah,” Nate says, and they just stare at the batch of cookies for a while, until Mikey starts smelling that burnt food smell and he feels nauseous. “I should trash this.”“Definitely get rid of it.”





	behind the scenes of a bake sale

**Author's Note:**

> ha gay

“Stop it. Stop, Nate, you’re gonna—just give it to me,” Mikey says, grappling for the wooden spoon in Nate’s hand. It’s covered in cookie dough and the chocolate chips look frustratingly appetizing, but, like, he’s not here to eat. He’s got a job to do, which is not letting Nate bake ever again.

“No, dude, I know what I’m doing,” Nate insists, holding the spoon high above his head. He’s taking full advantage of the literal inch of height difference between them, and frankly, Mikey really doesn’t have the patience for this right now. 

“Like hell you know what you’re doing,” he says. “You added too much baking soda, these are gonna taste like crackers.” 

“At least they won’t taste like _bricks_ , you’re not any better, remember?” Nate snaps.

“Oh my god.” Mikey shoves him and gets just about the most lacklustre response in return. Because Nate sort of just stumbles back and takes the bowl with him so he can walk right out of his reach. “You do not know what you’re doing.”

“I’ve baked before. I’m not totally useless,” Nate says, and Mikey bites the bullet to reach in, trying to tear the spoon from his grip again. It’s almost like Nate sees it coming, because he moves and Mikey ends up grabbing his wrist.

Mikey tries again and rips the spoon away “I swear, I’m gonna shove this thing right up your—“

“Mikey,” comes a small voice from across the kitchen, and they both twist their heads towards it. 

“Hey, buddy,” Mikey says quickly, moving towards his little cousin and crouching down in front of him. “How’s it going?”

“Why are you and Nate fighting?” He asks, staring up at him with big innocent eyes. It gets him right in the heart, and Mikey realizes that _maybe_ he should be focusing more on making the cookies for Ryland’s school bake sale instead of. Y’know. Trying to gouge Nate’s eyes out with a spoon. 

“Hey, no, we were just—talking,” he explains, reaching out and setting a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. 

And then, “Don’t worry, Ry. Mikey’s just a bit of a bully is all,” Nate says, and Ryland gasps like he’s just uncovered some huge scandal. Mikey tries to blink back his surprise. He isn’t sure if he’s ever going to be desensitized to kids. They’re really all that.

“Did you make my cookies?” Ryland asks, like his attention wanders away from things that easily. He pinches up his face in a way that Mikey guesses is supposed to convey impatience, but he really just looks like he’s sucked on a lemon or something. 

“Yes—“

“Nope,” Mikey interrupts, glancing over his shoulder at Nate. “We were having some technical difficulties.” 

“You’re a technical difficulty,” Nate says helpfully, and Ryland laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world. Which, again, he’s not going to understand kids if his life depended on it. 

Mikey rolls his eyes and Ryland is staring at him with this fleeting intensity. He thinks Nate might be making faces behind him. “We’ll have your cookies ready, alright? No need to worry,” he says lightly, because he’s not sure how to talk to children without coming off as frustrated. 

“Don’t screw up,” Ryland says excitedly, and Mikey’s not sure if it’s a demand or friendly advice. 

When Mikey glances over his shoulder, Nate is holding out a thumbs up, and Ryland’s mimicking it when he flits his gaze back to him. It gets a laugh bubbling out of his throat at least, and Nate looks pleased. 

“Can I lick the spoon?” Ryland asks, pointing at the wooden spoon in Mikey’s other hand. He looks towards Nate for some form of guidance. Nothing.

“Uh, no, sorry buddy,” Mikey says, and it rolls off his tongue a little awkwardly. Like he’s trying too hard to be nice.

Ryland looks devastated.

Mikey spends at least 3 minutes trying to figure out how many eggs to use in their second batch, because the first one tasted like ass, to which Nate added, “Yeah, you’d know, wouldn’t you.” Ryland’s outside playing catch with the dog, so they don’t have to worry about him catching air of what Nate’s saying. But, like, seriously. Kinda rude. 

“This is dry,” Nate tells him, after Mikey mixes together his cookie dough. He isn’t sure what he did wrong, especially because there’s loose flour sticking to the sides of the bowl. Nate’s giving it this scrutinizing stare like just looking at it will make it disappear. 

“I can see that, genius,” Mikey says, because his baking doesn’t need a narrator. 

Nate pulls the bowl from his hands and sets it down on the counter before grabbing a measuring cup. Mikey watches him for a quick moment until he realizes letting Nate do anything independently is equivalent to gambling with his soul.

“What’re you doing?” 

“Adding more butter,” Nate says, and pulls it off their tray of ingredients. 

“Yeah, no you’re not,” Mikey says, and takes the bowl back over to the island, setting it down well out of Nate’s reach. “I don’t trust you anymore. You don’t know the difference between baking powder and soda.”

“They’re the same thing,” Nate deadpans, and gestures to the two boxes they’ve got sitting on the counter, surrounded by a mess of white powder. “Same shit. Where are the differences?”

“It’s—“

“No, I want you to compare a speck of baking powder with a speck of baking soda and tell me how they’re _different_ ,” Nate says, and Mikey ignores him just to go back to mixing his cookie dough.

“You should try out for MasterChef,” he says casually, and Nate laughs.

So, here’s the thing. Mikey eventually runs out of chocolate chips because he’s irresponsible and he isn’t sure how to do adult shit like go out of his way to, like, grocery shop. He’s got a Walmart right by his place but he’s allergic to going outdoors and socially interacting with people he doesn’t _have_ to talk to, so, like. Problem. 

Nate rolls his eyes and goes through his drawers until he finds some M&M’s. The Best By label is faded out, so they either expire in December 2016 or December 2018. That really isn’t a choice Mikey has the power to make.

“This is fucking disgusting, you’re a pig,” Nate says, setting the pack on the counter. It’s half eaten and Mikey has pretty vague memories of stuffing his face with M&M’s while marathoning The Office. 

“They’re probably bad, don’t use them. We might kill someone,” Mikey says. “That might be bad.”

“Yeah,” Nate says, and he sounds a touch sarcastic. Mikey probably deserves that. “It _might_ be bad. Killing someone. With, y’know, M&M’s.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“ _Killing someone_ ,” Nate says, annunciating every syllable. “Who hurt you. Why are you like this.”

“At least I know how to bake,” Mikey says, and he doesn’t even regret it.

“I know how to bake, fucker. You’re just jealous,” Nate tells him, sounding accusatory. “You’ve had my brownies before, they were special in more than one way.”

“Because—“

“Because they came from the heart.” Nate looks at him solemnly, and Mikey guesses that means he has no room to protest. Even if being able to bake weed brownies isn’t a talent to wear that proudly. 

Mikey nods his head, and he decides not to poke anymore fun at Nate’s baking, for the sake of both of their sanity. “Yeah, okay, brownie boy. Go make a Walmart run if we’re not using these things,” Mikey says, gesturing towards the M&M’s.

Nate looks like he’s about to protest, but he takes the car keys anyways, because, “I’d rather not poison children. Just saying.”

“Oh, fuck,” Mikey hears suddenly, and it’s never great to hear Nate cursing in the kitchen. It’s somewhere near the perfect concoction for failure, and they’ve ruined their dumbass cookies enough times that when he scrambles into the kitchen he’s not surprised to see Nate dropping a pan of charcoal black cookies onto the stove. 

“Oh,” Mikey says. He blinks. Once, twice, and—that’s a thing. “Gross.”

“Yeah,” Nate says, and they just stare at the batch of cookies for a while, until Mikey starts smelling that burnt food smell and he feels nauseous. “I should trash this.”

“Definitely get rid of it,” Mikey agrees, and pulls the ingredients back out just so they can try this again. Nate smiles at him as he’s dumping out the cookies, and Mikey can’t help but smile back.

They’re hopeless, maybe. But at least they’re hopeless together.

Ryland is sitting on the island watching Nate mixing the batter because apparently Mikey looked like he was in pain while doing it, which is perfectly plausible. His hand was hurting like hell, no surprise there.

Mikey can’t help but laugh when he catches a glimpse of Ryland training his focus on the cookie dough, like if he tries hard enough he might be able to taste it. Which Mikey doesn’t get. He isn’t sure why anyone would ever want to eat these things, but, like, okay. 

“Can I try mixing?” Ryland asks out of the blue, making grabby hands at the bowl, and Nate seems to hand it over without a second thought.

That was one of their better attempts at making batter too, so Mikey really shouldn’t be shocked when it ends up splattered against the floor. 

Anyways. Mikey’s official list of things that should never be trusted with baking consists of children and Nate. Pretty similar energy through and through. 

Ryland feels bad enough for ruining the cookie dough that he draws a picture of Nate and Mikey with his “super special birthday crayons” while they try to figure out if adding marshmallows to the cookies would work or not. 

“Nate is the red one because I really like red,” Ryland says gleefully, pointing at the stick figure drawn out with messy a crayon. It’s Nate, apparently, and it’s really just a bunch of lines and a circle for a head, but Mikey thinks it’s close enough to praise. 

“Hey, that’s really great, Ry,” Nate says, and tousles his hair a little. Ryland grins wide enough that it splits his face like a jack o’ lantern. Itt makes Mikey laugh. 

“And this is Mikey,” Ryland announces, pointing to the other figure in his picture. 

“Why’s he purple?” Nate asks, and he flashes his dimples when he glances over at Mikey, catching his eye. There’s a sparkle underneath his expression, and it warms Mikey’s heart in a way he wasn’t really expecting.

Ryland stares at his drawing for a beat, like he forgot just why he made the choices he did. Then he shrugs, and turns to look up at Mikey. “I ran out of blue.”

Nate yawns and rests his head against Mikey’s shoulder. They’re pressed together on the couch, anticipating the telltale beep from the oven. Nate looks tired, and for good reason, too. They’ve been eating nothing but testers of cookies, and half the time they weren’t even _good_.

Plus, it’s late. They tucked Ryland into bed a while back, after checking in with his parents just to make sure he’s good to stay the night, and Nate had wrapped his arm around Mikey’s waist while they said their goodnights. 

There was something about it that made Mikey’s heart thump a little harder against his chest, rattling his ribcage unforgivingly. He isn’t sure what it had meant, but then again, part of him knows exactly what it means. And he just—he isn’t sure if it’s okay to want that. With Nate. 

He just bites the inside of his cheek, leans back against the couch and stares up at the ceiling. This is okay. 

Nate nearly drops the pan when he pulls it out of the oven, and it hits the stove with a loud thud. Loud enough that Ryland could’ve very well woken up if Mikey hadn’t shut his bedroom door. But then again, them making jokes about how bad they are at this was loud enough, so there’s that, too.

Weirdly enough, the smell of the cookies hits Mikey like a fucking truck, because they’re _good_. They smell like vanilla wrapped up in a warm chocolatey blanket, like everything good in the world all mingled into one. It’s sweet, and Mikey feels a small swell of pride in his chest. 

“Thirteenth time’s the charm,” he says, as Nate pulls out the cooling racks, because Mikey was a little extra prepared when Ryland asked him to make something for his bake sale. He really wouldn’t own those things otherwise.

Nate shrugs and sets the things down, handing Mikey the lifter so he can transport the cookies to their spots without, like, fucking up. As they’ve done enough times. “Third time could’ve been the charm if you weren’t totally stupid.”

“Alright, I mean, I wasn’t the one burning the cookies but go off, for sure,” Mikey says, and he slides the cookies onto the cooling rack. 

Nate makes an affronted sound, and it knocks a small laugh out of Mikey. “I didn’t know that would happened,” he tries.

“You didn’t know the cookies would burn,” Mikey says, keeping his voice flat. “If you, I dunno, put them in the oven for an hour you thought they wouldn’t burn.”

“That was just as much your fault as it was mine,” Nate says, and lets out yelp when his touches the top of the oven door. 

“That’s hot you dumbass,” Mikey says throwing the oven mitt at him.

Nate catches it gracelessly, nearly toppling over in his attempts to make a one handed grab. “I can think of a few things that are hot,” he says, and when Mikey starts laughing he adds, “The sun. Microwaves.” 

“O—kay,” Mikey says dismissively, drawing it out. “You’re taste testing this batch.”

“Why _me_ ,” Nate whines, like he knows their baking is bad. Well. they’ve ruined this enough times to have it permanently ingrained into their heads, but getting lied to is still a little reassuring. 

Mikey rolls his eyes. “I did it last time.”

“The last batch was good,” Nate argues. 

“That’s what you think. You have no taste buds.”

Nate blinks at him. “But—“

“ _No_.”

Apparently, Nate isn’t great at remembering things are hot, because he reaches for the cookie and fucking squawks when he burns his hand on the melted chocolate. He’s a dork, and Mikey hates it but he’s _his_ dork. And that’s just how it is.

“We forgot to add brown sugar,” Nate says, making a face as he chews the bite of cookie in his mouth.

Mikey groans against the table and puts his head in his arms.

It should be a little concerning, maybe, that they’re up at midnight making cookies. Because Mikey’s starting to think Nate looks stupidly cute in his dumb daisy patterned apron and the streak of flour across his cheek. He has to take a minute to remove himself from the whole thing, just to stare down the dirty mixing bowl he’s supposed to be washing and collect himself. Because Nate—he’s something else entirely. 

Nate’s fucking _beautiful_ , with his dimples and the way his tongue peeks out of the corner of his mouth as he scoops cookie dough onto the baking sheet. His brows are pressed in close together, and Mikey has to look away when Nate’s eyes flick up towards him. It’s just. It’s difficult. He’s tired, they both are, and he’s a little delirious from working around cookies all day. They only need one more batch.

“Can I stick these in the oven?” Nate asks, and his voice is rough from how exhausted he is. 

Mikey tells him, “Go for it,” and pretends it doesn’t get to him when Nate passes a small lazy smile his way.

Mikey hears chimes going off a little later into the night, and it’s the timer he set on his phone to take the cookies out of the oven. He has to blink the sleep out of his eyes and then he realizes that he doesn’t really wanna leave Nate’s side off the couch to take the cookies out.

And then, “I’ll handle it,” Nate says gingerly, and slips out from beside him so easily that Mikey barely registers that he’s gone until his eyes open up fully. 

Nate’s back before he knows it, it’s all just a blur of movement, really. Mikey falls back asleep to the smell of cookies, and the sound of Nate’s steady breathing.

Mikey wakes up to something tugging on his arm, and he doesn’t register the voice saying his name like a mantra until he nearly gets pulled clean off the fucking couch.

“Woah, okay,” Mikey blurts out, and opens his eyes to see Ryland staring at him curiously. There’s a blanket draped over his shoulders like a cape, and Mikey tries to shift to straighten himself out. 

He doesn’t realize he’s still leaning on Nate until he realizes his hand is right on his thigh.

“You don’t have a bed?” Ryland asks, frowning at him. Before Mikey can respond, he throws in a, “Did you finish my cookies?” It’s clearly still the most important thing on his mind.

“Probably,” Mikey says, because he isn’t sure if their last batch tastes any good yet. He really doesn’t wanna see another chocolate chip for the rest of his life.

Nate yawns from next to him and shifts, slowly prying his eyes open. The first thing he does when he wakes up is glance at Mikey and smile, and there’s something in that that makes Mikey’s pulse jump all on its own.

He looks like he’s about to say something to Mikey before he catches a glimpse of Ryland, and his smile turns to a grin. “Hey kiddo,” he says. “Little early, huh?” 

“It’s 12,” Ryland says, frowning. 

“It’s Sunday,” Nate says, “Weekends are for waking up at 3 PM.” 

Ryland looks unimpressed, and Mikey can’t help but laugh into Nate’s shirt. 

“These are kinda not shit,” Mikey tells Nate after trying out a piece from their latest batch, and Nate flashes him an excited look.

“Really?”

“Kinda,” Mikey stresses, but Nate looks just as happy regardless. 

“That was the goal.” Nate smiles, and he looks like there’s been a giant weight lifted from his shoulders. It goes both ways, actually. Mikey never thought baking was this stressful, but when you suck at shit, it’s stressful. 

Mikey smiles back, letting it hang loosely from his lips. “We did it. And, y’know, we both learned some shit.”

“Yeah,” Nate says. “I had fun.”

“I‘d do this again if it was with you,” Mikey says, because he’s not really thinking at this point, and spending more time with Nate sounds fucking fantastic. 

There might be a chance that he’s overanalyzing the way Nate dips just slightly into his space when Mikey looks up at him, but. 

His hand finds Nate’s waist before he can help himself. Neither of them say anything for much longer than a beat, and Mikey can hear his heart thrumming in his ears. Mikey doesn’t even know where Ryland is, and he isn’t sure if this is right. If it’s okay to be this close to Nate now. 

Even then, Mikey feels his gaze dip downn to Nate’s lips, watching him immediately suck his bottom lip into his mouth. Fuck. “You make me wanna kiss you,” Mikey says quietly, and Nate barely reacts. Or at least, he doesn’t let it show on his face. Mikey doubts he’s any better at controlling his emotions, let alone his impulses. 

“Please,” Nate says, and he inches closer until Mikey musters the courage to go the entire way. 

He lets his other hand slide up to cup the side of Nate’s neck, holding him in close like an anchor. Like if he left, Mikey wouldn’t know what to do with himself. Because everything on his mind right now is Nate, and Nate’s lips, and Nate’s soft little touches. It’s all Nate. So maybe backing away now would be like losing a piece of himself.

Mikey just kisses him. Not like he’s his last breath of air, or like Nate’s his only source of life, because Mikey sandpapers down all the rough edges and keeps it soft. He kisses him like he doesn’t wanna break him, careful and easy, indulging in exactly what he’s wanted. Nate’s a good boy, he deserves nice things.

Nate pulls back after some time, and Mikey finds himself chasing the touch of his lips again, but he settles on pressing his forehead to Nate’s, holding him in close. 

That doesn’t last very long, because the patter of small feet coming the stairs is loud enough that Mikey forces himself to move away, still watching the small smile on his face.

“I liked that,” Mikey says softly, as if he needs to, and reaches out to take Nate’s hand. 

Nate lifts his hand to kiss his knuckles. “That was—yeah. It was perfect.” 

Mikey doesn’t think he’s woken up at 8 AM in the morning since high school, but he’s got Ryland tugging at his leg all dressed up for school, excitedly word vomiting how ready he is to show off his cookies at the bake sale. And like hell Mikey wants to get up now, but Nate and him worked hard to get those things tasting like something other than overly salted chocolate chips. 

He feels a big warm hand on his arm, and the lightest kiss to his shoulder blade underneath the blanket. “C’mon, let’s go,” comes the voice, Nate’s groggy morning voice specifically. 

Ryland cheers and Mikey shouldn’t be too surprised when he clambers onto the bed to start jumping around. Mikey’s almost sure he’s going to get squashed by him, so he rolls out of bed before he breaks both his legs. 

He hears Nate laughing, and Mikey doesn’t even have to turn around to know his grin is just as bright as the sun.


End file.
